Interview with David McGuire, a college professor from Waldo, Kansas, regarding his education and music background, career in music education at the University of North Texas, the development of the College of Music, and band history.

The New Yorker recently referred to Pat Metheny as “possibly the most influential jazz guitarist of the past five decades.” A native of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, just southeast of Kansas City, Metheny started playing in pizza parlors at age fourteen. By the time he graduated from high school he was the first-call guitarist for Kansas City jazz clubs, private clubs, and jazz festivals. Now 66, he attributes his early success to the local musical environment he was brought up in and the players and teachers who nurtured his talent and welcomed him into the jazz community. Metheny’s twenty Grammys in ten categories speak to his versatility and popularity. Despite five decades of interviews, none have conveyed in detail his stories about his teenage years. Beneath Missouri Skies also reveals important details about jazz in Kansas City during the sixties and early seventies, often overlooked in histories of Kansas City jazz. Yet this time of cultural change was characterized by an outstanding level of musicianship.

Interview with Pam Livingston, a Denton, Texas public servant from Kansas. Livingston discusses growing up, her family, attending North Texas State College (UNT), her impression of Denton, her jobs with the city, being a certified business development specialist, church activity, changes in Denton over time, and thoughts on community. In appendix is a picture of the Denton County Courthouse, and one of the Denton County Confederate Memorial.

Transcript of an interview with Reverend William McElvaney, Dallas clergyman and social activist. McElvaney discusses concerning his childhood and education in Dallas; membership in Methodist Church; pursuit of undergraduate and MBA degrees from SMU; career in banking and oil businesses; decision to enter Perkins School of Theology at SMU and Union Theology Seminary in New York; influence of Reinhold Niebuhr; family life; pastorship of Methodist church in Justin, Tex., St. Stephen's United Methodist Church of Mesquite, Tex., and Northhaven United Methodist Church of Dallas; involvement in Dallas civil rights movement, particularly around issue of fair housing, and efforts to integrate Mesquite schools; involvement in antiwar movement; career as teacher and administrator at Saint Paul School of Theology of Kansas City and Perkins School of Theology; efforts to make Northhaven a "reconciling congregation", opinions on "Religious Right" and its role in American politics.

The nine stories in Mike Alberti’s debut collection shine a sharp light on small-town American life —not the Arcadian small towns of yesteryear, but the old mill towns hanging on after the mill has stopped running, the deserted agricultural communities in the middle of vast industrial farms, places where bad luck has become part of the weather. But even in these blighted, neglected landscapes, the possibility of renewal always presents itself: there is hope for these places and the characters who inhabit them. In these fresh, innovative stories, some people let you down, but some people don’t.

Interview with Howard Charles, a Marine WWII veteran and POW from Partridge, Kansas. Charles discusses growing up in the Great Depression; joining the Marine Corps and training; assignment to the USS Houston (CA-30) at Manila as a heavy machine gunner and events before the war; the Battle of Sunda Strait and sinking of the Houston; capture by the Japanese and being held at Serang, Java; experiences in internment and forced labor at Bicycle Camp in Batavia, Changi Camp in Singapore, various camps along the Burma Railway, and Saigon; liberation; psychological treatment, trauma, and adjusting to civilian life. In appendix is a letter written by Charles to Marcello including additional information for the interview.

Interview with Raymond F. "Hap" Halloran, businessman and U.S. Army Air Force WWII Veteran (878th Bomb Squadron, 499th Bomb Group, 73rd Bomb Wing, 20th Air Force) concerning his experiences as a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese during World War II.